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Boys swimming: Scouting the Fox Valley area

Bartlett-Streamwood (co-op)Coach: Jeremy Meserole

Top swimmers: Seniors Ryan Griffin (sprint freestyle), Brandon Paul (breaststroke, freestyle), Dan McDonnell (sprint freestyle, backstroke), Hien Tran (sprint freestyle), sophomores Tommy Cummins (freestyle, backstroke, IM), Luke Woerner (IM, breaststroke)

Outlook: Meserole is excited about this year's squad, which has a healthy dose of newcomers on it. "This team is exciting because we have a lot of new blood," he said. "We don't have a lot of experience, but we have a lot of kids eager to learn and improve. They have been working hard both in and out of the water. They are getting back in shape and learning and refreshing their fundamentals." The coach also has been impressed with the team's commitment and camaraderie.

District 155 co-opCoach: Rick Schaefer

2014-2015 finish: Fox Valley Conference champions (8th year in a row)

Top returning swimmers: Senior Cooper Langanis (200, 500, Cary-Grove), junior Ethan Hare (IM, Cary-Grove), sophomores Omid Babakhani (Crystal Lake Central), Connor Dolezal (Cary-Grove), Nolan Hare (Cary-Grove), Nick Jasinski (backstroke, butterfly, IM, 500, Crystal Lake Central)

Key newcomers: Freshmen Noah Bengston (500, Crystal Lake Central), Kolin Fadden (breaststroke, Cary-Grove), Jacob Manley (breaststroke, Prairie Ridge)

Outlook: Boys' swimming is alive and well at the four District 155 schools. Schaefer has a team of 45 swimmers this season that is utilizing two different training pools with three different practice time slots. On the individual front, Langanis qualified for state last year in the 200 and the 500. "This year Cooper is looking to final in both events," said Schaefer, who noted Langanis broke the program 500 record by more than 10 seconds last year. Jasinski qualified for state in the backstroke last year as a freshman. "With another year of experience Nick is looking to add another event to qualify in," said Schaefer. "He is a well-rounded swimmer and may swim the 100 fly, 200 IM or the 500 free as his other event - all of which he is close to making the state cut." Bengston provides good depth in the 500, while Fadden and Manley, Schaefer noted, will create healthy competition in the breaststroke where five swimmers are within 3 seconds of each other. "Several events will have teammates competing for varsity events," said Schaefer. "That alone should help the team prosper this season. With 45 swimmers we are deep in a lot of events. The 100 back, 100 fly and 500 free we should do well in and perhaps have multiple state qualifiers." Another hotly contested event within the team is the 400 relay where Schaefer said six swimmers are competing for the four spots. Ethan Hare already is close to the state cut in the 200 IM. Schaefernoted the team has some high goals with wanting to qualify as many swimmers as possible for state and to improve on its sixth-place sectional team finish from a year ago.

District 300 co-opCoach: Rick Andresen

2014-2015 finish: Third place Fox Valley Conference

Top returning swimmers: Seniors Dane Cipparone (Jacobs), Bartek Czyz (Jacobs), Kevin Darby (Jacobs), Cole Guenther (Jacobs, distance), Frances Ogaban (Hampshire, backstroke, butterfly), Kristian Van Wiel (Hampshire, butterfly), junior Gage Efken (Dundee-Crown), sophomores Lucas Becker (Dundee-Crown, breaststroke), Reid Coyle (Hampshire, sprints, distance), Elijah Stuart (Hampshire, butterfly, backstroke), Colin Waddell (Jacobs)

Key newcomers: Freshmen Mitch Barrett (Jacobs), Eric Boysen (Jacobs, IM, butterfly), Jacob Carignan (Hampshire), Harold Ogaban (Hampshire, breaststroke, IM, 500), Wiktor Sereda (Dundee-Crown), James Spurny (Jacobs)

Outlook: While the District 300 co-op team does return some experience, the squad also has an influx of youthful talent. "We're still a young team," said Andresen. "It's encouraging to see this youth movement. We have some very good older swimmers and a great group of newcomers. Right now we're working on where to put everybody. They all are working really hard and have been pretty impressive in practice so far. There is a lot of competition, which is a fun thing." Frances Ogaban returns with state meet experience, while his freshman brother, Harold, will immediately help the team in a variety of events. "Harold can swim just about anything. He's a talented young swimmer," said Andresen.

Elgin-Larkin co-opCoach: John Means

Top returning swimmers: Senior Chad Billings (breaststroke, 200), Pablo Chavez (50, 100), juniors Jakob Woerner (IM, butterfly), Durand Thorne (backstroke)

Key newcomer: Freshman Arthur Thorne

Outlook: Like with other area teams, Elgin-Larkin is going through a talent replenishment of sorts. "Being a young team, we have a lot of room to grow," said Means. "We graduated four guys from last year, but this season we brought in eight new freshmen and three new sophomores and many of them have previous competitive swimming experience." In the early going thus far, Means has liked what he has seen in the pool. "Being so young, they already have improved on a lot of the basic fundamentals and they continue to get better," he said. Means has high hopes for the 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay, where Billings, Chavez, Woerner and Thorne will factor in. "I think we have a solid chance of doing some good things," said Means. "With all four in the mid-23-second range for the 50 free, we definitely can drop some times and make a push." Means would like to see the team take another step forward this year in its fourth year back as a boys' swimming program. "Since the boys' swim team at Elgin still is relatively new, we are looking to improve a little in conference and sectionals from previous years," he said. "We still are no match to push St. Charles or anything, but a goal is to challenge the other U-46 schools in our conference."

HuntleyCoach: Brenda Czarnecki

Top returning swimmers: Seniors Aaron Vandy, Thomas Gaudio, Quinn Landoch, Dillon Gaynor

Outlook: Czarnecki takes over the Huntley program this year and despite an apparent lack of depth, she has high hopes for the Red Raiders to better their fourth-place finish a year ago in the Fox Valley Conference. "We have four returning seniors this year and a mix of 10 freshmen and sophomores," the coach said. "This team is looking to better its conference finish this season and have a strong sectional showing."

MarmionCoach: Bill Schalz

Top returning swimmers and divers: Will Kamps (so.), Anthony Bliss (sr.), Joel Bottarini, (sr.), Sam Wehrli (so.), Gary Rockwood (so.), Nathan Kusczynski (Jr), Joey Reiter (Jr)

Key newcomers: Henry Bliss (fr.), Nolan Fergus, (fr.), James Graft (fr.), Matthew Felber (fr.)

Outlook: With only one scoring swimmer back from last season, it'd be easy to say that Marmion's in a "rebuilding" situation. The thing is, the Cadets are a lot better than that and that returning swimmer - Kamps - is incredibly good. So if it's a "rebuild" the foundation is already well in place. "(Kamps) is definitely going to be the leader in the pool," Schalz said. "He's head and shoulders ahead as a distance freestyler in training. Kamps placed 12th in the 500-yard freestyle and has aspirations in the 200 IM as well. "We both walked out of the state meet last year and said 'this was a learning year,' " Schalz said. "He wants bigger things. He's only a sophomore and he could be racing against the top 500 freestylers in the state, not to mention in the IM." Other key swimmers include seniors Bliss and Bottarini as well as sophomores Werhli and Rockwood. Wehrli has improved greatly since his freshman year, when he was a newcomer to the sport. Marmion has four freshmen on the varsity team this year. "Normally, they take year until they're swimming with the varsity, but a couple of these boys have a lot of swimming experience, so we'll see if they're ready to take the next step," said Schalz, who coached the Rosary girls' team to a state championship this fall.

St. Charles EastCoach: Joe Cabel

Top returning swimmers and divers: John Tarpey (sr.), Nick Milosch (sr.), Andrew Lewarchick (sr.), Trevor Andersen (sr.), Nick Boryk (Jr), Kyle Dunlap (Jr), John Cranfill (Jr), Kyle Lewarchick (so.), Mitchell Milosch (so.), Harrison Holman (so.)

Key newcomers: Nick Vance (fr.), Garrett Prybell (fr.), Matt Nagler (fr.), Austin Cabel (fr.)

Outlook: If you're looking for a dark horse team to surprise this season from the area, it could be St. Charles East, which returns a massive number of swimmers with state experience from last year. The Saints sent nine entries to the state meet, but had a rare difficult day and failed to advance anyone to Saturday's finals. "We have some maturing to do pretty quickly," Cabel said. "We want to get 600,000 training yards in so we can go faster at the end. We've got some good leaders in our seniors, which will help." Tarpey leads the Saints' seniors in the water while Lewarchick is poised to have a stellar senior diving season. Other returning state qualifiers include juniors Boryk and Cranfill and sophomore Milosch. "We have to be patient and things will come for them," Cabel said. "We had some youth last year and the state meet was a bit of a shock to their systems in terms of how seriously this state takes that meet." But since that weekend last February, Cabel said core members of his team have been preparing for this season. "There is a good core on the team, and they've spent the last 40 weeks preparing for the season, and they've come in pretty focused," Cabel said. "

St. Charles North Coach: Robert Rooney

Top returning swimmers and divers: Joe Myhre (sr.), Stephen Hutchinson, (sr.), John Quinn (sr.), Nathan Bawolek (sr.), Nick Wolff (Jr), Caymus Cairns (Jr), Michael Burke (sr.)

Key newcomers: William Myhre (fr.)

Outlook: St. Charles North has one of the strongest boys swimming traditions in the area this century. The North Stars have finished in the Top 10 six times, have been fourth once and fifth twice. So while the team was pleased with its 10th-place finish last year, there is significant returning talent as well as potential to finish higher this season. "We've got kids back, but it's a question of how much work they have done and how they will respond to a boys high school season," Rooney said. "I'm looking forward to the group and cultivating some higher expectations. We kind of fizzled out a bit last year at the end of the state) meet." Among top returnees is Myhre, who was fifth in the 100 freestyle and sixth in the 50 freestyle last year. "He is going to be a big player for us," Rooney said. Burke is a solid diver for the North Stars and seniors Hutchinson and Bawolek are also returning swimmers with experience at the state meet. "My model for this year is 'all-in,' " Rooney said. "I'm excited to see what they can do. They're going to have to hunker down and be unified from Lane 1 to Lane 8 and it's going to be a work in-progress all season."

South Elgin Storm

Coach: Tim O'Grady

Top returning swimmers: Senior Josh Anderson (breaststroke), junior Grant Rosborough (diving), sophomores Ross Urso (freestyle, IM, butterfly), Alan Romanowski (breaststroke, freestyle), Sam Vassallo (freestyle), Justin York (diving)

Key newcomers: Freshmen Adam Aubry (freestyle), Aidan McClow (freestyle)

Outlook: South Elgin graduated a lot from last year, but still has more than ample fuel in the gas tank. "We graduated a large class of seniors, but we've kept an even larger class of sophomores who already are taking control of the team and stepping up," said O'Grady. "The core of the team is getting better and better every year. We're becoming more competitive with each other. York is a standout diver and has a colleague in that event in the form of Rosborough. Romanowski, Anderson and Sean Doherty are strong in the breaststroke. O'Grady has seen good progress from the likes of York, Romanowski and Urso at the start of the season. "Justin is looking to break into new heights this season," he said. "Alan and Ross worked hard in the off-season to be more of a threat this season." O'Grady noted the team bumped its dual-meet record from 1-4 to 3-2 last year. "We look to continue improving our dual-meet record by improving our core as well as making our top swimmers even better."

West AuroraCoach: Chris Ranallo

Top returning swimmers and divers: Martin Ambre (sr.), Kevin Cortez (so.), Chris Garcia (sr.), Gabe Guillen (sr.), Tyler McLaren (so.), Joe Ochsenschlager (so.), Jovan Suvira (sr.), Ethan Wahl (sr.)

Top newcomers: Owen Zant (fr.), Alec Wahl (Jr), EJ McLaren (sr.)

Outlook: Turnouts always matter with West Aurora's boys swim team, and the good news on that front is that 36 swimmers and divers are in the water for the Blackhawks. What's more, some of those athletes are talented, maybe talented enough to qualify for the state meet and maybe talented enough to end the team's scoring drought at the state meet, which extends to 2001, when Evan Parr scored in the 100 backstroke and the 200 IM. "The core group on this team has put in a lot of hard work and they can lead this team," Ranallo said. "They can make a name for themselves at the conference meet and maybe get a qualifier too." Ambre helped kick-start this revival in West Aurora's swimming fortunes when he and the other seniors arrived. Other core swimmers include Wahl and McLaren. "The guys trained tremendously in the offseason," Ranallo said. McLaren's older brother EJ McLaren is out for swimming this year as well, and the senior will further boost the team. "We have 13 guys on the varsity team, and they have stepped up big-time so far for us," Ranallo said.

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